[JURIST] The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child [official website] on Friday issued reports [materials] on Nauru, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, New Zealand, South Africa and Suriname following a committee session held last month. The committee’s independent experts commended the nations’ efforts to push laws and treaties intended to protect children’s rights and address human rights violations highlighted by the UN in previous evaluations. The committee, however, also mentioned growing concerns such as Nauru’s lack of effort to monitor and report on the mistreatment and abuse of asylum seeking and refugee children. Their reports stressed the country’s need for a more systematic method of data collection to allow the international community to observe and protect these children who sustain inadequate living conditions and are particularly victim to discrimination. The committee also expressed concern that Saudi Arabia continues to discriminate against the female population by giving too much control to male guardians, enforcing dress code policies, and upholding strict gender segregation. Reports also denounced Saudi Arabia’s laws allowing detained minors to face excessive punishments such as flogging, stoning and amputations. The committee has scheduled [UN report] its next session for January and plans to evaluate Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Malawi, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Serbia.

The international community continues its efforts to protect the rights of children being mistreated worldwide. On Monday UN children’s rights expert stated [JURIST report] that Syria’s continued infliction of harm on children is a “brutal abdication of human rights obligations they have committed to respect.” Last month a UN reporter raised [JURIST report] international awareness for “silent pandemic” of childhood disease and disability caused by exposure to toxins and waste. Also last month Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] denounced [JURIST report] Nepal’s lacking efforts to prevent child marriages in light of a report that least 37 percent of girls are still being married before age. 18. That same week, UNICEF [official website] reported that millions of children have recently been driven from their homes due to violence and conflict.